Himura Kenshin in Wonderland
by Amy the Evitable
Summary: It was a typical day in the Kamiya dojo, until Kaoru came home with a pair of gloves and a pocketwatch...
1. Chapter 1: We're All Mad Here

Rurouni Kenshin is the creation of Watsuki Nobuhiro. No infringement of his rights, or the rights of Sony or Shonen Jump intended.  
Alice in Wonderland is the creation of Lewis Carroll, and no infringement of his rights, or the publisher's rights intended, either. This work is intended as an homage to both artists; and if you haven't read the Alice books, go and do it now. Yes, now. 8^) I highly recomment Martin Gardner's Annotated Alice.   
  
Part 1: We're All Mad Here*  
  
The trouble, Kenshin decided, had begun with the pocketwatch and western-style gloves.  
  
Kaoru had won them in a contest and brought them home one fine spring morning, gleeful at her good luck. She had gone to fetch tofu that morning, and had come back not only with tofu, but also with the aforementioned objects and a hungry Sano in tow. From the porch, he had watched as Sano slouched along the path, carrying the tofu bucket, and Kaoru danced around him, her new treasures dangling from her hand. She was in high spirits, and her teasing laugh rang out.  
  
"I told you, Sano, I'm just lucky!"   
  
"Yare yare...I admit it, you're lucky." Sano grinned, a calculating look in his eyes. "But if you want to rub it in a little more, Jo-chan, why don't you come with me this afternoon and we'll see just how lucky you are?"  
  
"Sano!" A brief chase ensued, but since Kaoru was unarmed and hampered by a kimono and geta, Sano emerged unscathed -- mostly. "Mou! I'm sure if I used my luck for that kind of thing, I wouldn't have it long."  
  
She spotted him on the porch then, and ran up. "Kenshin! See what I won!"   
  
She dropped to her knees, offering the objects in her cupped hands for his inspection: a small pair of white cotton gloves, trimmed with lace, and a golden watch on a chain. He lifted them out of Kaoru's hands to look more closely, and his fingers brushed against her palm. She caught her breath and goosebumps ran up her arms...Was she cold? It didn't seem cold to him.  
  
He tilted the watch back and forth, noting the strange English numerals along the edge, the tiny cogs and gears whirring behind the glass face. "It's very nice, Kaoru-dono. Where did you win it?"  
  
"There's a new store opening selling Western imports. They had a drawing...I wish I had won the chocolate instead!"  
  
"No, no... these are very pretty, Kaoru-dono. I'm sure they will suit you." He dropped the watch back into her hands, letting the chain slowly fall through his fingers to coil in her palm.   
  
"Honto ni?" She began to reach for him, but pulled back, the motion so slight that he almost missed it. What was she doing? A disappointed look flashed through her eyes, quickly replaced by her usual cheerful smile. What was wrong? He did a quick inventory: pocketwatch and gloves, undamaged; his friendliest smile, still there; his clothing, also still there and distributed with proper modesty; the sakabatou, still sheathed...What had she been disappointed by? Hmm. Maybe she had been expecting more of a reaction to the watch.  
  
He looked up to see Sano watching them with a knowing grin. What did he look so smug about?  
  
"Yah, ugly, those gloves will suit you...You'll look just like that psycho cop!"  
  
He could always count on Yahiko to break an awkward moment. With a shout, Kaoru was up and the chase was on. Sano sauntered up and leaned against the wall, dropping the tofu bucket in front of him.  
  
*Thud* "Y'know, Jo-chan's persistent, but even the tanuki-girl needs a little encouragement once in a while."  
  
"Oro?"  
  
Sano stalked off toward the dojo, muttering something about baka rurouni who were unable to see what was right in front of them.  
  
The miniature jeering whirlwind that was Yahiko in brat mode spun by him again. "Busu! Be glad you didn't get the chocolate -- you don't want to get even fatter than you are now!"  
  
*Thwack* *Thwack* The shinai-wielding vengeful angel in a kimono that Yahiko in brat mode could always bring out of Kaoru had caught up to the miniature whirlwind. "Fat! FAT! 200 strikes, Yahiko. Now. You..." She sucked in a deep breath. "Ne, Kenshin, you don't think I'm really fat, do you?"  
  
"Oro?"  
  
This was, apparently, the wrong answer. With a snarled "Men!", Kaoru stalked inside.  
  
Yahiko's face turned red, and he looked from Kaoru's retreating back to Kenshin several times. Then he turned, gave a full-force glare to Kenshin, and stormed off to find a shinai.  
  
"Oro?"  
  
Sometimes, living at the dojo was a little like living in a land where everyone had gone mad.   
  
*******  
  
Kenshin was in the kitchen, making onigiri for lunch. Since Kaoru seemed upset about something, he had decided to make the usagi-onigiri to cheer her up. He could hear Yahiko counting strikes in the dojo, with Sano's occasional sarcastic interjections. Everything seemed to be returning to normal as he carefully added the very last vegetable whisker to his culinary creation.  
  
Then he heard her.  
  
"I'm late! I'm late! Mou, I'm late!"  
  
Then he saw her.   
  
She had changed into her hakama and gi. She had fastened the chain of the pocketwatch to her hakama ties, and carried it and the gloves in one hand. And she had two big, fuzzy, floppy bunny ears sticking up from her hair.  
  
She scampered past him, muttering "Late, late, late, late!", and then he saw...the tail. The puffy, rounded white tail that peeked out of the top of her hakama.  
  
"Kaoru-dono...?"  
  
She didn't even turn to answer him as she scampered into the yard. "Gomen, Kenshin, but I'm late. Mou!"  
  
This was, of course, totally unacceptable to Kenshin. Action was called for. Plate of usagi-onigiri in hand, sakabatou by his side, he chased after his usagi-landlady at top speed, one imperative at the front of his mind: He couldn't let Kaoru-dono miss her lunch.  
  
Kaoru seemed to be faster than usual, though. Perhaps it was the large hops she took every few paces, but in any case, Kenshin could not catch up. "Kaoru-dono! Chotto matte de gozaru!"  
  
She hopped straight into a cluster of lilac bushes. He followed, pushing branches out of his way. The bushes must be thicker at the top than they looked, he thought, since it was so very dark under them. "Kaoru-dono?" Forward into the lilac-scented thicket, one step, and another...then suddenly he was falling into complete darkness.  
  
"Ororo!"  
  
And that was when he realized the trouble had begun.  
  
*Including the author. No, I didn't really need a footnote here, but all the other chapter headings had one, and I didn't want this one to feel left out.  



	2. Chapter 2: Curios and Curiouser

Part 2: Curios and Curiouser* ****

Part 2: Curios and Curiouser*

Kenshin fell and fell and then, just for variety, fell some more. Oh, dear -- he hoped Kaoru hadn't also fallen. "Kaoru-dono? Are you falling? Do you need me to save you de gozaru ka?"

There was no answer. That was good. As he didn't feel the icy knot of panic in his stomach that he usually felt when Kaoru was in danger of some sort or another, it seemed likely that she was safe. Yokatta. With the important question settled, it was time to consider the problem at hand.

It wasn't the falling that bothered him so much as it was the darkness and not having any idea at all of when he was to hit the ground. If he could see the ground coming up at him, Kenshin was sure he could land the plate in a gentle arc that would scarcely waft the whiskers of the onigiri, preserving the attractive appearance of the food. As it was, it was going to be rather difficult to keep from ruining the onigiri when he splattered onto the ground.

With nothing else to do, as he didn't find falling a particularly challenging activity, Kenshin began working on a haiku of leave-taking. The taxing thing was that he'd no idea how long he had to create and revise his poem; he'd rather have a complete, if uninspired, haiku than die with a haiku that was mid-revision -- but still, he hated to give anything less than his very best effort. If only it wasn't so very dark!

Well, the least he could do was try. Kenshin folded his legs up and propped the sakabatou against his shoulder as he fell. This was, after all, his best position for deep thinking, whether on the porch, by the river, or in mid-air.

Crimson liquid flame

Footsteps leave that path to carve

Rebirth in azure...

No, not azure. He wanted a deeper shade of blue; a particular shade of blue appeared in his memory, a deep playful blue...so quick to sparkle with laughter or tears...

Nani? Where had that image come from? He tried again:

Eternal bloodstains

On the blade turned toward hope

Fade at her soft touch...

No, no, no. This would never do. He had to find the images to tell the story of his heart...which was his guilt, his blood-stained hands, his unworthiness, his overwhelming angst, not all of this yearning sensual nonsense. Yes, his black and empty soul, like a river in winter...something like:

Black rivers...ummm...what was that image again?

Aha!

Black rivers of silk

Fingers ache to twine... Oro?

This wasn't working at all. He couldn't possibly do a proper leave-taking haiku when his mind was full of images of deep sparkling blue and the softest caresses and twined strands of ebony tickled by the wind...What was WRONG with him? What were these images DOING in his mind's eye?

Wait! What WAS wrong with him? 

Hair in the wind...Hai! Every other time he'd fallen for an interminable period, his hair had been blowing out behind him, and his clothes had been rippling and twisting in the wind. But this time his hair was calmly laying against his back and his clothes were far less ruffled than his mind. 

The puzzle was solved with the appearance of light below him. The light poured out of a paper lantern in a small recessed nook; judging from his rate of approach, it seemed he was slowly drifting downwards. There were more lanterns at regular intervals which allowed Kenshin to observe the walls of the tunnel as he fell.

To Kenshin's surprise, the walls were decorated -- almost cluttered, if he was allowed to criticize. There were shelves laden with books, neatly labeled jars, ivory knickknacks and carved wooden whatnots and sparkling curios of all kinds. There were scrolls hung, some with traditional images of ladies in kimonos looking pensive, cloud-capped mountains, and willow trees drooping over tranquil rivers. Other scrolls looked very odd, indeed -- one had a huge metal-armored figure in the foreground and a wistful blue-haired girl in the background. Another had a kitten hanging from a tree branch with some sort of gaijin script beneath it. Yet another had a ring of faces surrounding a girl who stood in front of a red bird that rather resembled an exceedingly large chicken.

He drifted past a crudely carved message: "Hibiki Ryoga was here." That was clear enough. More cryptic was "For a good time, visit http://welcome.to/TheAkabeko," which was next to a painting on black velvet of a gyrating dark-haired gaijin wearing tight white sparkling clothes.

He was so distracted by these strange items, and so busy wondering exactly what a "Hello Kitty" might be that he was taken entirely aback by his landing. It was a gentle landing upon a pile of lilac leaves, and he was quite unhurt by it. He jumped up, lilac-scented but no worse for the wear, just in time to see a wisp of black ponytail and white bunny-ear turn round a corner. 

"Kaoru-dono, chotto matte de gozaru yo!"

Her reply drifted back around the corner to him. "I can't! I'm late, and the Queen hates tardiness! Oh, won't the Duchess be savage if I'm late..."

Gamely, he ran after Kaoru, plate of onigiri held before him like an offering. But turning the corner, he saw neither hide nor hair of her in the long dimly-lit corridor which stretched before him.

* No, it's not a typo. It's the plural of 'curio,' ok? Indulge me on this one, since I left the hair/hare pun implied in the last paragraph.


	3. Chapter 3: Mutabili-Tea

Himura Kenshin in Wonderland

Himura Kenshin in Wonderland

by Amy the Evitable

C&C welcome as always at nuriko72@netscape.net!

Part 3: Mutabili-Tea*

The corridor didn't look too terribly strange. There was a wooden floor and a wooden ceiling, and a wooden framework of walls covered with rice paper. Except the soft filtered sunlight came slanting in at a low angle from both walls. And the corridor seemed to stretch out forever in both directions; the corner he'd turned pursuing Kaoru was nowhere to be seen. And instead of shoji, there were a bewildering variety of doors lining the corridor. Over there was a large pair of doors of a dark, weathered wood; huge solid slabs held closed by a thick metal bar across them. Next to them was a smaller door, painted a cheerful green with a western-style knob. Across from it was a round metal door, with a protruding spoked wheel that Kenshin assumed had to be a very unusual knob. Even further down, he saw a heavy iron grid that looked as though it was meant to be lifted up rather than slid to the side. And beyond that, there was a small white door with four glass panes set into it that was slowly swinging shut.

Kenshin launched himself toward the closing door at top speed. Kaoru might have just exited through it, and if she had, he needed to catch it before it closed and locked. It had to be awfully far down the corridor, as the tricks of perspective made it look quite small indeed. Speed was of the essence. The wind whipped through his hair and might have blown the whiskers off the onigiri had he not shielded them with his arm as he sped down the corridor -- and skidded to a sudden stop, as he overshot the door.

*Click* 

It swung shut. There had been no trick of perspective. The door was in fact a mere six inches high.

"Oro?" Kenshin knelt, laying his head sideways on the floor to peer through the tiny glass panels. He saw an elegant garden, with a gravel path wandering through flowerbeds, around sakura trees and up to a small pond. There was a glint of light as the sun reflected off the scales of a leaping koi. And hopping along that path, ears alert and perky, was Kaoru.

"Ororo?" How had she done that? She was short, certainly -- delightfully petite -- and slender, but...

Gingerly, he tried the door, twisting the miniature brass knob between his thumb and forefinger. As he'd feared, it was locked. Kaoru was rapidly hopping out of sight. He had to act quickly if he was to deliver her lunch in a timely manner. He leapt to his feet beside the door, carefully balanced the plate on his head and slid into battou-jutsu stance. His hand hovered just above the hilt of his sakabatou. A moment of stillness stretched out unbearably, until like lightning, he struck, slicing the rice-paper of the walls in an 'X.' The paper curled back to reveal...

...another wood-beam-and-rice-paper wall. 

His eyes narrowed in an expression of ferocity that could strike fear into the hearts of samurai and support beam alike. He struck again. And again. And again. And a few more times after that. Each time, the architecture crumbled before his onslaught, only to reveal another wall. 

This was getting ridiculous. He'd sliced through several inches of wall here, far more than the thickness of the tiny door. Where was the garden? 

Turning away from the relentlessly unyielding wall, he saw something in the middle of the corridor that he was quite certain had not been there a few moments before. It was a three-legged glass table, perhaps three feet tall. On top of it was a tiny brass key. Laying the plate of onigiri on top of the table, he took the key. Could it be…?

Indeed it was. The tiny key slid into the tiny lock, and with a satisfying tiny snick, the door opened. A soft breeze carried the gentle scents of spring to his nose, which was more or less the only part of his face he could fit through the narrow little door. Kenshin's head was simply not going to fit, much less the rest of his body. He was short, but not that short, Kami be thanked.

Well, that wasn't going to work. He stood back up, and the door swung closed again. Sighing, he walked back to the table, and set the key back down. But something new had joined the onigiri on the glass table. It was a teacup. A large teacup, to be sure, almost the size of a sake jug. But it was a teacup, and it seemed to be filled with freshly whisked green tea. There was a note next to it. It read: Drink Me.

"For sessha? Masaka..." As Kenshin was a very polite rurouni, he couldn't simply assume the tea was really for him. Surely it was meant for someone else who would no doubt be along soon. He took back the plate of onigiri, lest this anticipated wanderer devour Kaoru's lunch by mistake along with the tea. Kenshin looked up and down the corridor, but no one was approaching. Looking back down at the table, he saw that the note now read: Yes, you, Kenshin no Baka. 

"Yare, yare," he murmured. "There's nothing wrong with being polite." He lifted the teacup to his lips.

It was the best green tea Kenshin had ever tasted, although it contained the flavors of jasmine, ginger, honey, sea-salt, and buttered toast in a most peculiar un-green-tea-like fashion. He took a sip, and set the cup down while he closed his eyes to savor the complexity of the tea. Oishii.

Eyes still closed, Kenshin swayed on his feet a moment, feeling dizzy and lightheaded. He wobbled, but caught himself on a glass pillar. Wait. That hadn't been here before. The table had apparently disappeared, too -- 

Wait... Oh, no. No, no, no. It couldn't be. But...The doors along the corridor now looked exceedingly large, and the ceiling seemed much farther away than it had a moment ago. And the pillar upon which he was leaning seemed to have two twins nearby, and above them was a huge glass disc...

It could not be denied. He had somehow shrunk to a mere 3 inches in height. "Ororo!" This is what came of drinking strange tea in the middle of even stranger halls; he should have known better.

This would never do. He had difficulty persuading people to take him seriously before without resorting to his sakabatou; now... How Shishou would laugh! It was going to be very difficult to protect Kaoru like this, although he suspected a Ryu Tsui Sen would do serious damage to a kneecap.

Kaoru! Yes! Shishou could laugh all he wanted to, because now Kenshin and his similarly-shrunken onigiri could easily fit through the door to the garden. He jogged back to the door, which was now a considerable distance from the table. The brass knob rattled beneath his hand, but would not turn. It was locked... and the key was on top of the glass table.

Kenshin returned to the table to ponder the problem. The glass was far too slippery to climb, especially carrying the onigiri. But the key was at the very edge of the table. His nine-headed-dragon-strike ought to shake the table sufficiently to vibrate the key right off the edge. Kenshin nodded decisively. It ought to work. It was no more improbable than the Futae no Kiwami, after all.

Kenshin stood back, again balancing the plate of onigiri on his head so he didn't accidentally step on it. With a fierce battle cry, he launched himself at the table leg, body moving in a blur, the strikes seeming to come from nine sakabatou rather than one. At the end of the attack, he leapt back, and extended a hand just in time to catch the plummeting brass key. Yatta!

Then Kenshin heard a sound. He'd have to describe it as a cracking sound; a peculiarly glassy cracking sound, something like 'skrinkle.' He looked at the table leg to see a network of tiny cracks flow up and down like water pouring out from the point of impact, and the table top begin to topple. In slow motion, he watched as the huge teacup, still mostly full of tea, came plummeting down. Hitting the floor beside him, the vast cup shattered, and a wave of tea pulled him under and washed him away.

*Sorry that it's not an Alice quote. The best I could come up with was "O Door!", a play off of Alice's attempt to address the mouse in schoolbook Latin. And that was getting a little too obscure, even for me. 

I apologize for leaving off the Japanese glossary in Parts 1 and 2!

Here it is for Part 3:

baka: a frequently used non-obscene insult. Literally, 'stupid'.

battou-jutsu: a name for Kenshin's style, emphasizing rapid drawing of the sword.

futae no kiwami: the name of Sano's object-shattering punch

kami: God or Gods

masaka: It couldn't be.

oishii: tasty

onigiri: rice balls, in this case, decorated to look like bunny rabbits

Ryu tsui sen: One of Kenshin's leaping moves, where he hits as he's descending.

sakabatou: a reverse-blade sword. 

sakura: cherry-blossom

Shishou: 'Master'; what Kenshin calls Hiko Seijirou.

shoji: rice-paper and wood sliding doors

Yare yare: 'Now, now' or 'whatever'

Yatta: Yay!


	4. Chapter 4: Running in Circles

Part 4: Running In Circles* ****

Himura Kenshin in Wonderland

By Amy the Evitable. Feedback always welcome at [nuriko72@netscape.net][1]

Thanks to Kevin and Jenn, my wonderfully ruthless editors.

Part 4: Running In Circles*

Kenshin had performed more impossible tasks in his life than staying afloat in a tsunami of green tea while keeping dry a plate of onigiri, but not since early that morning. And this particular task was disappointingly short of opportunities for angstful soul-searching. It was just as well -- he should probably focus on searching for the door and swimming back to it rather than revisiting his bloody past. Carefully treading water, he looked around.

Ahead of him, on the crest of the wave, he caught a glimpse of a familiar-looking brown horse, carefully balancing on two legs atop something flat and bright yellow. He could have sworn it was looking at him and flashing a 'V' sign with a front hoof. He shook his head and blinked, and the horse was gone. Yokatta. This was no time to be distracted by trivial matters like the physics of sea-faring equines. He had to find Kaoru and deliver her lunch. She got terribly short-tempered when she skipped a meal.

Other than the thankfully-fleeting mirage, there was nothing but the blue sky above and green tea stretching to the horizon. The entire hallway seemed to have been washed away. Kenshin tried to feel guilty about that, but found it rather difficult as it hadn't been that nice a hallway. He was quickly distracted by a dark speck upon the horizon, and began to swim toward it. In a surprisingly short length of time Kenshin found himself climbing onto a sandy shore.

The dark speck had been a cluster of palm trees at the center of a small desert island. One of the trees sported a single coconut, which Kenshin regarded with grave misgivings. His keen samurai sense of danger was telling him that somehow, in some way, that coconut was going to fall and land directly on his head. It was fate. It was destiny. It was, he feared, irresistible slapstick. 

He was distracted from his attempt to stare down the ominous lone coconut by the arrival of another drenched castaway. Sloshing to the shore with a cheerful smile was Seta Soujirou. 

"Konnichiwa, Himura-san! How are you?" Soujirou shook himself, spraying water in all directions, and began to preen his feathers.

Kenshin didn't think Soujirou had possessed either feathers or a beak to preen them with the last time they'd met, but he didn't think it polite to comment upon them. He knew the kinds of radical changes that could come over a man on a long journey toward redemption. The wings were also new, but they didn't look nearly large enough to allow Soujirou to fly. They were probably vestigial, Kenshin decided.

"Konnichiwa," said Kenshin politely. "I'm fine, thank you for asking. You're looking... ano... well. What have you been doing lately?"

"Swimming, mostly." Soujirou beamed at him contentedly. "Are we the first ones here? I thought we might be; we're awfully quick, you know. But don't worry; Shishio-sama will be along shortly, I'm sure." 

Before Kenshin could even begin to cope with this latest revelation, Shishio was indeed stalking up the shore, muttering under his breath about having sand in his bandages.

Kenshin could only gape in horror. Still more castaways were washing up. They were all familiar, and left Kenshin with a sinking feeling of dread. Jineh; the priest who'd taught Sano the Futae no Kiwami; Raijuta who'd broken Yutarou's arm; even the men of the Assassination Group of Five...

(He'd tried, he'd really tried, to keep track of the names and causes of everyone who had challenged him to prove some sort of a point about ethics or philosophy or the nature of samurai honor, but there were just so many of them! Eventually one face and rant began to blur into another. He'd long since given up on remembering the names and faces of all the petty thugs he'd defeated; but if someone went to all the trouble of explaining the deeper meaning behind the conflict, he felt he owed them his best efforts to remember. Really, Kaoru had a much better head for that sort of thing, probably because her training hadn't involved quite so many blows to it.)

The arrival of so many enemies who were either dead or in prison was bad enough; worse yet, each person had feathers, or fur, or pointed ears. On some people -- Kaoru, for example -- it was kawaii, but Kenshin could have happily lived his entire life without ever seeing Jineh again, much less a Jineh adorned with long whiskers and a bushy tail. 

There seemed to be a certain amount of grumbling among the dozen or so warriors now standing on the shore, mostly having to do with being wet.

"A true warrior cannot stand around dripping green tea," snarled Raijuta. "Would this peaceful Meiji era seek to deny us towels as well as swords?"

There was a general murmur of agreement and a call for some sort of action, preferably a violent revolution against the Meiji government. Shishio looked up from his attempt to lick dry the bandages on his hand, his ears perking forward alertly. He took charge of the crowd with the ease of long practice. 

"The situation we find ourselves in is unacceptable to men of honor. Our hands drip not with the blood of our enemies, but with tea. Action is called for!" He groomed his whiskers as he pondered a moment. "I have the solution. We shall have a race. The strong will have both speed and endurance. They will win the race, and in the winning, achieve the dryness they seek. The weak will be food for the strong." Shishio grinned, revealing sharp, pointed teeth.

"But how do we know when we've won?" inquired a voice from the crowd.

Shishio folded an arm across his chest and propped his chin on a hand. "A good point. We need some sort of standard to measure ourselves against, to know when we have succeeded." Dark eyes peered from behind bandages, taking in the island, bare of anything except the fighters and the palm trees. His eyes lit on Kenshin. "Very well. We'll know we've won when we've beaten the Hitokiri Battousai!" declaimed Shishio. There were nods of approval all around. It seemed to be something of a tradition amongst them. "Then.... begin!"

With a shout, the assembled warriors charged at Kenshin. 

"Oro?" The island was small, no bigger than the Kamiya property, and there were few directions to run. His pursuers followed him as he ran around the circumference of the island, once, twice, a third time... 

Jineh was catching up to him. "You can't possibly beat me! You haven't killed a man in ten years!"

"Eleven," corrected Kenshin mildly.

"Eleven years! Get angry! I want to race against the true Battousai! Return to who you were during the Bakumatsu! I can beat you easily as you are now!" Jineh pulled ahead of him, laughing madly. The wild laughter continued as Jineh raced along the shore, only to end in a sudden shout of fury. Over the palm trees, across the island, came Jineh's scream of rage: "Damn you! You're ahead of me again! I'll defeat you yet!"

Round and round the island went the race, runners strung out along the shore like beads on a monk's necklace. Kenshin was beginning to pant and the dampness of sweat was replacing the tea soaking his clothes. "This is a ridiculous race. No one can win; the only possible outcome is for sessha to lose. Really, being bitten by Shishio wasn't so enjoyable that sessha is willing to do it again." 

"That's the thing about all that bloodshed and waving katanas about," observed Soujirou placidly as he paced Kenshin, scarcely breathing hard. "Once you've started, it's hard to get out of it. You just keep killing and killing, and each kill makes it necessary to kill more people. It's like being trapped in a really nasty circle. Someone should write a book about that. Here, let me help you with those." Soujirou took the plate from him. Although the onigiri hadn't seemed terribly heavy, it was much easier to run without them. It was as if Kenshin had put down a heavy burden.

"Arigatou de gozaru. But I thought we were both done with that," protested Kenshin. "All the killing."

"Ah, so desu. Shall we be going, then, Himura-san?"

"Going where?"

"There's only one way out of the race," observed Soujirou, as he spread his undersized wings. "Up." The pathetic little wings began to flap, and unbelievably, Soujirou took to the sky with a smooth and untroubled grace.

"Chotto matte de gozaru!" cried Kenshin. "Chotto matte!" He leapt toward Soujirou, his fingertips brushing against Soujirou's sandal at the apex of his leap but finding no hold. Soujirou continued to ascend. There was only one high place Kenshin could leap from if he was to catch the smiling boy with the not-so-vestigial wings.

Kenshin leapt onto the palm tree, wrapping his arms and legs around it. "Chotto matte! You've got Kaoru-dono's lunch...."

As he prepared to push off against the tree trunk in one last attempt to stop the lunch-napping Soujirou, Kenshin looked up to see destiny rushing towards his face, in the shape of a coconut.

And then he saw no more.

*Well, I thought about letting it be a caucus race, but Shishio informed that samurai didn't **do** caucus. Would you have argued with him? (Especially with risu-Jineh hanging around, no less? And if anyone wants to try drawing any of these folks – risu-Jineh, neko-Shishio, dodo-Soujirou, or anyone else -- I'd love to see the results. I've got a gorgeous usagi-Kaoru that Sou-chan did for me.)

Japanese Glossary:

Ano: Used here as a filler word, something like 'um' or 'er.'

Arigatou: Thank you

Bakumatsu: the recent civil war, in which Kenshin was a hitokiri.

Chotto matte: Wait a moment.

De gozaru: Kenshin's usual polite way of ending sentences.

Futae no kiwami: the name of Sano's object-shattering punch

kawaii: cute

konnichiwa: Hello, good afternoon.

onigiri: rice balls, in this case, decorated to look like bunny rabbits

sessha: Kenshin's version of "I"; literally 'this unworthy one.'

so desu: That's so.

usagi: rabbit

Yokatta: an expression of relief or pleasure, something like 'Thank goodness.'

   [1]: mailto:nuriko72@netscape.net



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